Cockermouth Restaurant Guide

2022 Review: “Good all round” – this vegetarian restaurant in a pretty townhouse next to Cockermouth castle offers diners the popular option of tasting everything on the menu. Louisa & Colin Le Voi, who have run it with minimal help for 32 years, have put the restaurant on the market but are in no rush to retire.

“What more could you want after a day on the fells than the hearty, well-cooked food” at this famous 400-year-old Lakeland inn, which brews its own beers at a site nearby (and where you can also stay the night in one of ten rooms). The cooking’s nowt fancy, mind: Chicken tikka burger, Steak & ale pie or Moroccan lentil cottage pie are typical of the no-nonsense scoff.

“A truly magical Lake District setting” – “high in Whinlatter Forest with lovely views down the valley from the terrace and the dining room” – help inspire little but good vibes for Beth (GM) & Jack (Chef) Bond’s well-regarded coaching inn at 1000 ft (which they purchased in early 2024). The worst report this year said a meal was “good all round but didn’t wow”. All other accounts acknowledge it as an “exceptional” and “delightful” favourite thanks to its superb welcome and the “outstanding” cuisine, which at dinner provides seven courses for £120 per person (lunch is a somewhat pared down five courses for £75 per person). They alternate menus by the day, so that if you stay in one of their rooms, you have something new to go at!

2024 Review: On the lower slopes of Skiddaw, England’s third highest mountain, a luxury mid-Victorian Lakes hotel that “never fails to impress”. The restaurant has been relocated over the years to amplify the “wonderful views”, and it continues to please with its “good variety of dishes” (from Sunday lunch to salads and Cumbrian rarebit) that are also “exceptional value for money”.

“Tasty and varied ‘fellpots’” – as dishes from around the world are called on the menu here – are the “reward” for a day running or hiking across the nearby fells at this flagship bistro for John Butterworth’s fast-growing Keswick operations. Last year he acquired Lyzzick Hall hotel and restaurant, three miles out of town, to add to his cocktail and burger bar The Round and boutique hotel Fellpack House (fka The Hazeldene).

The pan-Asian restaurant at this “impressively refurbished hotel” overlooking Derwentwater offers “an accessible menu with lots of choice to suit all the family”, “reliably cooked and with professional, friendly service”. ‘Mizu’ means (appropriately) water in Japanese, and the kitchen leans towards “authentic Japanese food, with a good variety of sashimi and sushi”, especially in the “fabulous tasting menu”.

This “really buzzy place in the centre of Keswick” offers a “great choice of freshly cooked and delicious burgers, with the option to change the bun for salad”. Part of the locally owned Fellpack operation, it even convinces doubters – “I’ve reached an age where burgers are not for me anymore... unless I’m at The Round”.

“The best masala dosa outside of India” – well nearly – comes highly recommended at this “delicious” Indian street-food specialist, which offers “something a bit different (and amazing cocktails)” in the heart of the Lakes. It’s also tipped as a local favourite by Jack Bond, chef-patron of nearby high-flyer The Cottage in the Woods.